Some Maverick Ideas

I'm only 45 pages into the book Mavericks at Work, and already I'm finding nuggets that are affirming.

Pg 15: "If you want to renew and re-energize an industry...don't hire people from that industry. You've got to untrain them and then retrain them...They are trapped by the past. Remember, resurrection has only worked once in history."

AMEN! (That's Baptist for "I agree!"). With 75+ staff members at Granger, only 4 ever worked for another local church prior to joining our team. Sometimes I get calls asking if we want to list our open church staff positions in a magazine or online. I ask, "Why would I want to do that?" If someone on staff at another church calls and wants a job, I tell them to move their family to Granger, get a job, and begin serving as a volunteer at Granger. That's where we get our best hires.

Pg 17: "Companies that compete on a disruptive point of view [translated innovative] are defined as much by the opportunities they choose not to pursue as by the businesses they do enter."

The bigger we get as a church, the more we have to decide what we are not going to do. We are constantly sharpening our focus. I'm pretty sure we are doing fewer things now (with 5500 people) than we were five years ago (with 2500 people).

Pg 44: "We are curious and restless--a safe haven for misfits that somehow fit here. We like who we are. We like the people who like us. When people come in to change our core culture, the body rejects them."

This is a concept we communicate clearly during our 101 membership class. "If you want to pull with us, in the same direction, jump in the harness and pull. If you are here to change us, find another church, cause we need your seat." You can either spend your energy trying to reach new people who need to know how much they matter to God, or you can spend your time catering to the whining of every disgruntled believer who thinks there is something better you can do to meet their needs.